


See You Next Raw

by Missy



Category: Professional Wrestling, World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: Character of Faith, Fluff, Fluff with substance, Friends to Lovers, Humor, M/M, Romance, Slice of Life, Vacation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-08
Updated: 2012-10-08
Packaged: 2017-11-15 21:38:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/532048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missy/pseuds/Missy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shawn and Hunter find themselves changed as they meet for their annual lover's retreat.</p>
            </blockquote>





	See You Next Raw

**Author's Note:**

  * For [voodoochild](https://archiveofourown.org/users/voodoochild/gifts).



> Written for Drea. Happy birthday!

Connecticut in the fall is painfully beautiful, painted in fire colors, shades for a child’s paintbox. Its beauty shone through and seemed to influence everything. Even while sitting in an airport, hunched over with mirrored sunglasses, Hunter could envision the elm trees tangling limbs, their pale orange-gold crowns melting away to show the sun beaten branches kissing the sky.

The arrival is announced and he rises on crackling kneecaps to head to the gate. He’s the last off the plane; there were pictures to take and autographs to sign. Paul’s been there a thousand times, but the wait stirs as much impatience as it did the first time (Florida, orange soda, hiding under a pier with a vial of coke after the best show of their young lives). But he is a grown up now; he’ll wait.

Shawn’s hobble is more of a stride today – his garment bag is slung over his shoulder, and the humbleness that normally glows in his eyes replaced by a crooked, cocky smirk. “Hunt,” he greets, arms held out. “Brothers hug,” he admonishes sarcastically, but Paul’s already approaching.

The embrace is a signal is as old as time itself; hard, sharp backslaps to fool the most suspicious talk; loud talk about the flight and the meal and the weather, and finally, the children. They’ve truly developed restraint in their old age.

It all comes down to which of them will blink first, and Paul knows – always knows - it will be him. 

*** 

The inn is quiet and, Shawn observes as they cross the threshold, strikingly queeny.

“Name me an inn that isn’t queeny,” Paul replies, already loosening his tie. Shawn sheds his cowboy hat and shirt. 

“Still don’t believe you did that to your hair,” he frowns. 

“It kept getting in the way,” Paul says. “You know how little kids get.”

Shawn slumps down carefully, pulling off his boots – they have too many war wounds to be hasty as they had been in their shared youth. “What’m I gonna use for a reign?”

“God,” Paul mutters, laughing. His silk shirt and tie are shed upon the floor. “Do what you do best. Improvise.”

They meet in the middle of the room, and the world turns into a forties melodrama.

*** 

Their sex is not mannered, or even orderly. Instead, they move in random ways, at random patterns, for totally random reasons, cocks sliding along spines, tips of fingers tracing earlobes. Lips tracing pale white surgical scars which stand out, starkly, from spraytanned knees.

There’s a lot of laughter. What can they do but laugh at the infirmities of the bodies? There is no room for crying in their relationship.

Afterwards, he pops open a bottle of Moxie cola and sits cross-legged in the middle of the bed, eating terrible Chinese food while they watch top gun. He talks between bites with great enthusiasm about the megachurch he’s been going to. There’s much talk of sin and of joy and the sacrament of confession, so much that Paul interrupts. 

“So,” asks Paul. “Do you think God’s gonna forgive us for this?”

Shawn lifts his shoulders. “Whelp,” he says. “God knows my sins. He knows I love my children and my wife,” he adds, crawling up toward Hunter. “And he also knows I need something to confess Sunday morning.” 

Better that, the unspoken said, than going off the wagon, hurting yourself or your wife. Their lust was minor via comparison, nearly venial. 

*** 

It’s past midnight when he rises to pop some Percocet and a couple of Loritab with the flat. He keeps his meds hidden in a secret compartment at the back of the golden Rolex Stephanie bought for him two anniversaries ago (she understands everything, and far too well). 

When he crawls back into bed, his feet are ice cubes that battle the sheets for warmth. 

“Hey,” Shawn grumbles into his shoulder, rolling towards the warmth of him and tucking his head against his neck like a schoolchild. 

Moonlight glistens off of his tattoo as they begin again.

*** 

They’re both far enough off their training regimen to down a greasy Dennys meal, and Shawn has an enormous stack of outrageously over-sugared cinnamon roll pancakes. Paul, in spite of his desire to break away, sticks to juice, toast, and egg-white omelets. 

In the middle of the meal, Rebecca calls. Shawn returns to the booth grinning.

“What?” Paul asks.

“Cam’s got a girlfriend.” 

That’s awkward. Cute, Paul thinks, but incredibly awkward. He pushed his food around on the plate until the check comes, then pays for it.

They don’t speak again until they’re both belted into Hunter’s brand-new Porsche. “So the girls’re okay?” Shawn asks. 

“Fine. Steph sends her love.”

“So does Becky.”

Awkward silence. The car races back to the inn, where things are much simpler and the real world doesn’t close in like a vice when you overthink.

*** 

He sneaks out at midnight on a Sunday. It’s too painful to say goodbye – always is – and so they’ve developed a routine of texts, calls and notes when they can’t be together. It was easier on the road – there were no goodbyes there, just a long series of hellos.

He texts Shawn when he’s halfway home. 

_See you next Raw_

A minute or two passes. His phone vibrates.

_I’ll bring your cufflinks._

His grip falters, the phone dropping from his fingers as Paul automatically pats at his cuffs. Gone. 

He grinned. They’d been there when he’d stripped them off the night before. Shawn must’ve been on the lookout for another venial sin to confess.

So very typical of Shawn. And as he returns to his ordinary, ordered, corporate world, he thanks God for that.

The End


End file.
